Tuesday, April 23, 2013

My Pots Are Numbered


This morning I am glazing for the first official test firing of my project. Me and two buddies - excuse me, two buddies and I - are planning to fire ^6 reduction soda in Watershed's new spring arch soda kiln on Thursday, loading tomorrow. My buddies are Malley Weber, of Hallowell Clayworks, and Liz Proffetty, a potter from Newcastle.

It quickly became clear that I was not going to figure out the glaze calculation software in time to use it to re-write my own glazes for this firing, so I went with Plan B, and mixed up a bunch of recipes that I've gathered from various sources. I'll be testing seven glazes, two flashing slips, and stained trailing slip, and an underglaze. Malley and Liz will bring their own test, so hoping for a very informative firing!

I've numbered all the bottoms of the test pieces, in order to not be half-assed: I am writing down what glazes, slips, and combinations are on each piece, instead of pretending I'll remember, or assuming it will be obvious.

Since the Insight instructional videos proved pretty useless for me, I plan to spend the hours of the firing reading the 139 page manual. Big fun!

Stay tuned.

6 comments:

Linda Starr said...

Those numbers really do help after firing, even with my good memory I can never remember exactly what I do unless I write it down; have a good firing.

Sue Pariseau Pottery said...

What? I always remember what glaze I put on a pot. Until the moment I put it down anyway. ;-)Hope the tests go well.

Mesnic said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mesnic said...

No truer a statement in pottery has been uttered : "pretending I'll remember, or assuming it will be obvious"

-Rob, Simple Circle Studios said...

Good luck on the firing! I am looking forward to keeping up with how your project goes. Cone 6 wood or soda is an area I wouldn't mind exploring myself.

Lori Buff said...

Some people I know also take pictures of the pots and add that to the numbers and the notes. They get more complete info that way but it's also a bit of work. Of course you can always try that Pottery Notes App if you have an iSomething.